


The Morning-After Letter

by glitterburn (orphan_account)



Category: Onmyouji | The Yin-Yang Master (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-31
Updated: 2011-07-31
Packaged: 2017-10-22 01:19:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/232122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/glitterburn





	The Morning-After Letter

Hiromasa wakes in the darkness before dawn to find Seimei on top of him, astride him. The experience draws hunger and want from deep within. Hiromasa thinks he’s dreaming, but he knows he’s not. His fantasies are never as good as his reality, and Seimei is the only honest thing in a world of fractured illusion.

The soft line of dawn nudges the horizon. Shapes resolve, bringing visuals to match sensation. There’s heat and pressure and a rhythm, a dance as alluring and wild as the one Ame no Uzume performed for Amaterasu, and now in the half light he can see glimpses of Seimei—the long column of his throat when he tilts back his head, the incense-rich splash of black as his hair tumbles, the startling white of his under-robe, a flash of thigh… All pieces of a puzzle Hiromasa wants to spend the rest of his life trying to solve.

They joined in silence, so Hiromasa remains as silent, only their breathing erratic, soft gasps that break the morning air.

Afterwards, they sleep again.

Hiromasa wakes before long, wakes in time to greet the true dawn. At first he’s confused. In his own house, he’s accustomed to being woken by the sound of the servants going about their tasks, but Mitsumushi and the shikigami are completely silent.

He doesn’t know if he should leave or stay. At first he thinks he should stay. He and Seimei are friends, after all, and friends sometimes sleep together, and it means nothing more than a demonstration of affection brought on by too much wine or poetry or the tender emotion wrought by the beauty of the evening. But then Hiromasa convinces himself that his feelings for Seimei are closer to love than friendship, and thus he should behave as society’s rules demand.

He dresses in haste, conscious of Seimei peacefully asleep beneath the quilt of brocades, and he creeps away across dew-laden grass.

Once at home, he prepares ink and brush and starts to compose his morning-after letter. Appropriate to the day, he chooses misty grey Chinese paper. Despite his pretensions at court, Hiromasa knows he’s not an accomplished poet. He agonises over what to write, and finally decides upon:

  
_In last night’s tangled forest, a huntsman caught a fox:  
This morning it seems no more than a shadow._   


He writes in running script, the ink fading towards the end of the lines. After some hesitation, he adds: _I wish I’d stayed with you_.

Hiromasa summons a page boy, twists the letter into a knot, and sends it fastened with the white camellia of waiting and the yellow camellia of longing.

He waits in an agony of suspense for the reply.

The page boy returns, delivers a letter of smooth, thin paper the colour of a fox’s rusty coat, tied with a half-curled frond of bracken. There’s no poem, but in the centre of the page there’s an inky black impression, a fox’s paw-print. Hiromasa can’t tell if it’s painted or real.

Below it, there’s a line answering his: _Next time, stay_.


End file.
